Enough
by RedWritingRebel
Summary: ONESHOT. A father laments on what he has lost.


**Disclaimer: Me? Own the turtles? Pfft, maybe in my dreams.**

**A/N that I wrote months ago...: ****Long story short, I was dealing with some personal crap the other day and instead of wallowing in my own misery, I decided to write about someone else's. Nothing like some perspective to clear those tears and motivate some toughness into your bones.**

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**_Enough_**

The tears came hard, and they came fast. For once, he let them fall. They bled down his cheeks as the rain bowed into the grates in a graceless descent. Everything echoed in the sewers. Tonight, the pitter-patter of drops slipping past steel had company in the lone figure's sobs.

This wasn't weakness. It took more strength than anyone could ever understand to let out this pain. And it stood before him, a monster drenched in shadows, watching and waiting with all the patience in the world. Hurt could last a long time. It had no hurry in its leave, not with wounds like this. This pain lived deeper than the skin, or even the bones. It roamed the very halls of a heart that could take no more. Here, it was cold. It was bitter. If one looked close enough, they'd realize the organ wasn't created like that. It was just cluttered with these things when its new resident moved in.

After so long, however, it was hard to distinguish between what was and what is.

Another sob tore free. Along the slimy walls, it slithered back and forth. His eyes were raw now, rimmed red and strained in the darkness from a long held, listless stare. The photograph in his grasp was all he had left of them. One single picture snapped ages ago, worn around the edges, wrinkled in the middle, and water stained at every corner. It nearly drowned with him months early, when this hurt had drug him to where the water drained and churned deep in the city's bowels.

Many times, he cursed whatever cast him back into the cruel air. He didn't want to be saved. Fate decided otherwise.

So he lived on. Numbness never came, not like it was suppose to. No. He felt everything now. Every moment was an ache. Every blink brought a memory that burrowed down to his very core and lit a fire. One that burned for hour after destructive hour. There was no reprieve; hadn't been since they were taken from him.

His boys.

His rescuers from a pointless existence. Before them, there was only a next breath, a next step, a next meal because survival alone drove him on. After them, his existence revisited the past.

Before he grieved for a master. Now he grieved for pupils. For sons.

For _his_ sons.

He choked on the next sob, his shoulders shaking with the effort to force it out. Instead it scraped through his throat in an exhale as thin as paper. The pain still stood before him, tall, taunting, demanding more from him than he could give. Each night ended the same way: with him running dry and racing back to his burrow to replenish the water in his body. No matter how much he drank, it was never enough to slip out again. Until the next storm rumbled above, all he managed were soft gasps, mute keening, and fingers that trembled.

In his dreams, the past walked and talked. It hugged him tight. It bruised him in the waking hours. Bittersweet, he clung to it.

The picture crinkled in his paws. A new line laid against the eldest son's head, obscuring the wide dark eyes that ached to please and perfect. He smoothed it out and smudged the brightness from his youngest child's blue gaze in the same motion. Beneath the water, that innocent stare, once so happy, looked to cry silent tears.

They were all so young.

His heart shuddered as pain crawled back inside and settled in, tired of standing. Splinter didn't move; not at first. He tilted the photo in the near non-existent light and searched out the faces of his other two children. One was found frozen with half lidded eyes. Curiosity had folded them down their middle the moment the camera clicked. So many questions peeked from beneath that olive brow. There were always questions with him. And always there was a search for answers when Splinter had none to offer.

The last child glared at him. On two stubby legs, he stood like the hurt now did and demanded more than Splinter could ever offer. This world was cruel, and in those amber orbs that truth tumbled in a never ending circle. Defiance chased it. The need to be more than a shadow amongst the stench of a back alley, or the trash bobbing along in the sewer, birthed a challenge in the child's heart. Often, Splinter remembered the glint in those eyes that begged him to join in the fight.

It was a fight none of them could win; but that was something Splinter could not bring himself to tell the boy.

Tucking the photograph into his robe, the rat found footing and marched beside a stream of sewage. His house, because it could no longer be called a home, waited far from where he now roamed. He found his boys in this tunnel, and that was the only reason he needed to come here. At the very least, visiting this piece of the past was better than the corner where he lost them all.

Hardly five years of happiness... and then reality showed him how difficult survival could be. Winters, food shortages, diseases, and not an ally to be had; in his weakest moments, Splinter argued how his children's fate was unavoidable. Luck alone granted him those five short years.

Failure still stung him.

They depended on him and he was not good enough to keep them safe.

The rotten apples and hard won packets of oatmeal were not enough. The medicine he stooped low enough to steal in their final weeks was not enough. The shallow graves and scant headstones he labored to make for their small bodies were not enough.

Now, the past was all Splinter had. And that could never be enough.

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**A/N: Hi everyone, it has been awhile. I'm not going to say much, but for anyone who recognizes my long inactive username, I just wanted to take a moment to apologize for my absent. Life got rough and I had a hard time handling it, let alone writing stories. But I'm back now and I hope to God it stays this way. I love writing and I love TMNT and I have been missing all of this sooooo much. I'm slowly getting back into things, and yes, that includes Nothing Is Unbreakable, and The Last Thread of Sanity as well as many nearly complete short stories.  
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**But anyways, thank you so much for reading and I would absolutely LOVE to hear what you thought of this little piece that I wrote oh so long ago. ^_^**

**Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Cheers! Your Red Writing Rebel**


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